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A Scholar and A Statesman tells the enthralling true story of a young boy who dared to dream…and James Arthur Harley dreamed big, leaving his island home of Antigua in 1890’s to navigate the double complexities of oppressive racism in America and England with grace, style and dignity to achieve an esteemed education and his childhood ambition, but at what price?

A story of Empire, Education, Elitism and the Church of England.

A Scholar and A Statesman is a rehearsed reading delivered by professional actors on Sunday 18th June 2017 at the Attenborough Arts Centre, University of Leicester. The production is written and produced by Pamela Roberts and directed by Carol Leeming. Roberts wrote a profile about James Arthur Harley in her first book. Black Oxford: The Untold Stories of Oxford University Black Scholars.

Pamela said: ‘Harley’s life intrigued and fascinated me after I discovered his personal archive in the hands of a local historian’. A Scholar and Statesman is the culmination of two and a half years’ research spanning Antigua, England and America.The reading illustrates how Harley’s life intersected the complex intertwining of education, politics and race in the early twentieth-century.